Savage Dances
by PoeticThighs
Summary: Now a Miguel/Zafina fic. Miguel begins to tell the story of his most memorable affair to a Moroccan man in a backstreet Granada bar. Chapter two up: 'I kept staring at the second card, "No. This one" I pointed to the second card. "Forget the others."'
1. Prologue: Granada

Now a Miguel/Zafina fic. Translations and song information found below.

* * *

**SAVAGE DANCES**

**PROLOGUE: GRANADA**

"_Gilipollas_!" I shout after the wandering tourist, wiping the excess of spilt beer off of my jeans. The tourist briefly stops, looks up from his map and shrugs apologetically before walking away. I frown as I shake my head and kick my heel into the wall that is already burning my back. He's lucky I'm in some sombre mood, _puto guiri, no respect_. Other tourists hum past: the sky beats their skin into the colour of music that carries itself through the air. I gulp another mouthful of warm beer. A million tanned Granadas also sweat, hurry and buzz past me, pounding their unique flavour back into the floor of the city. This is not my city of birth, but I am fond of it nonetheless.

Maybe because this is not Buñol, the city of my birth and boisterous past. I'd like to think I have left that behind, but I haven't. All I have done is run away from the scene of so much anger and anguish. So maybe I like Granada for a different reason: maybe because the streets remind me of her.

_Granada, tierra ensangretada  
En tardes de toros,  
Mujer que conserva el embrujo  
De los ojos moros._

_(Granada, land covered in blood  
from the bullfighting afternoons,  
woman who retains the spell  
of Moorish eyes.)  
_

My lips curve at the edges, like arms stretching out for the sun on a warm day. _Good memories_. Any irritation caused dissipates, and for a moment I forget all about the asshole tourist.

"Miguel! Play a song, eh!" Old man Alej calls to me as he takes out a ragged damp cloth to wipe down one of the wooden tables. I raise the bottle and nod before swallowing what little beer is left. Alej shakes his head, his chubby forearms glistening in the heat of midday.

"Did you see what that _guiri_ did, Alej?" I begin to complain, throwing the empty bottle to him.  
He just manages to catch it, "They bring in your wage, Miguel, a wage you won't see unless I hear you play something. So be good, _mijo_."  
I wave my hand above my head as if I was swatting a pesky fly away, "Alright, alright."

Several of the bar guests turn to face me as I pick up my guitar and set it against my knee, slowly testing each string. They want to hear me play traditional Granada; they wait for me to pull the melody from the sully ground and give them a souvenir of this land for their travels home. Any populated place speaks of the people in it, and its people sing its song, each one a product of that moment and place. Granada is different, though; it permeates the grandiose legacy of the Moors who invaded here many centuries ago. Both the Catholic Monarchs and dark Sultans lusted for control of this land; pieces of their flesh still visible in the diverse architecture and districts left behind.

"Oh Miguel, why don't you play Atahualpa Yupanqui this time?" Eva, Alej's wife, suggests, her thin body leaning against the tavern doorway. Despite being a Spanish citizen on paper, she knows she will always be of old Argentinean blood. She often longs for the sounds of her homeland to squeeze her shoulders affectionately like her father used do when she was a little girl.

I shake my head. Just as speedily as the irritation had dissipated beforehand, Eva's request for Yupanqui quickly curls down the curves of my lips into a slight frown.

I like Yupanqui, but the only song I can play of his is the one I quietly strum during the night. _Preguntitas sobre Dios_. Questions about God. Questions I must ask God when my most painful memory lays alongside me in bed, quietly strangling tears from my eyes. Sometimes it seems no matter what bed I try to escape to, the memory always know where to find me: its death rattle hitting the walls of my skull as it constricts and chokes the happiness out of my brain.

As the sweat drips out from my burning forehead, the memory of my sister's own blood wedding seeps under my skin again, setting alight the furnace of my heart. I rub my eyebrow involuntarily remembering the soft Jota-styled song that was played from inside Buñol's biggest cathedral before the street celebration quickly burned into a crackling dirge. _Olvídalo, olvídalo_, I plead, _let me rest for the hours of day at least_. Even the down-right wicked and evil grow weary of Hell.

_I sing my songs on the byways,  
__And when I'm in prison,  
__I hear the voices of the people,  
__Who sing far better than I._

Maria was always a better singer than me. When we were children, it was always her who sung whilst I accompanied her voice with quick fingers upon the Spanish guitar given to me by my mother's parents. Now there is no voice left, only echoes.

I know I deserve whatever grief was bestowed upon me for the blood I willingly spilled in brawls, for spurning my father's most revered catholic Caballero blood. I also know my feud with my sister's chosen groom also deserved some punishment. But she didn't deserve to die for my choices in life. Her death was unnecessary, for whatever bad lay in my body and soul, she held the opposite. As if I carried on all the unruly blood of our ancestors and she preserved the good. Even the distant relatives who came to mourn from Málaga commented she was an angelic creature, Spain's own Beatrice.

My redemption is still fixed upon the axis of revenge that's incomplete. But there's nothing I can do about that now as Kazama is dead. _So they say anyway._

"No! Albeniz's _Granada_ song." Alej interjects. He has had to pick me out of the gutter enough times to realise I sing that particular Argentinean song in desperation. So Alej always makes me play Albeniz's _Granada_ instead, because he thinks it can dull every man's personal sadness: a song as effective as six of the strongest beers, he said one time. Anyway, it's also one of his favourite songs. And as for whatever personal sadness he wishes to cast away, he never really divulges, he just says it's a song to make you feel proud of the land you walk in. Besides, we all enjoy the good amount of coins and notes given by the foreigners who sip at their drinks in response. A man has to gamble money with some sort of steady wage, after all.

The first notes of the song come tenderly from my fingertips.

I looked up to meet the glances of women who had now crowded the garden to watch me play. They were all beautifully dull; I had slept with enough to know they were mostly always of the same sort. Entranced by my smirk and dark looks, and filled with a longing to tame the beast that hid under the mile of skin. They soon learned, leaping away in the morning, unable to deal with my insatiable hunger. And it was because of this I knew despite all the love I had for this land, I was no miniature modern Spaniard. I was an exile trying to be King, and this was not to be my land just yet, no matter how much I sweated or tapped my feet to the flamenco buskers…

"So why did you come here after the tournament, then?" A tattered-sounded voice asks, cleanly interjecting my bullshit talk. It has been hours since I played my last song of the day for Alej's guests. The sun is now setting and I can just about see the crown of it behind the apartment buildings towards the West of the district. The sun's light spreads with the same colour and consistency as that of an egg yolk, and the colours of the sky: they take on the guise of some fauvist painting with all the reds, purples, blues and pinks. There's something about these sunsets that knock the breath out of me.

_Granada, tu tierra esta llena  
de lindas mujere, de sangre y de sol.  
__(Granada, your soil is full  
of beautiful woman, blood and sunshine.)_

I look into the face of the stranger I have openly been slurring some of my secrets to for the last half-hour. It is an old and beaten face. Skin the shade and texture of tanned leather. Different to Alej's jolly, round and festive features. I think that's why I've found it so easy to speak to him of these embarrassing things that still have such hold over me. He looks like he has walked through fire in his lifetime, like me. He is another immigrant, like Eva, but this time of Moroccan descent: I let him tell me that much before telling him of my experience in Granada and how it is different to the life I led in Buñol.

He opens a packet of cheap cigarettes and offers me one whilst waiting for an answer.

I shake my head and lazily run my hand up and down the cool glass of beer, "I met some woman out there. Of your kind, a _moro_…" I pause, that isn't right, "No, not a _moro_, a _moura encantada_." The words elongate dreamily as it escapes my mouth.

"A _moura encantada_, eh?" The Moroccan laughs, "Let me guess, she tamed you and led you here on the leash, eh?" A definite slur against my manhood, one I would have stupidly defended when younger, but I'm now old enough to know that there are better reasons to pull the fists from out of your pockets.

"Nothing of the sort! Tch, think any girl could tame something like me?" I argue, scratching into my wild mop of hair. I may be old enough to know there are better reasons for fights, but I'm still the same defensive street urchin underneath: always prepared to waste energy on verbally protesting against such meaningless taunts.

The Moroccan taunts me, but underneath the banter I know he has respect for me. All those who have had the misfortune to travel through that dark fire have the ability to recognise a fellow fire-walker. The Iron Fist Tournament was full of them. The real con is to trick others in believing you have never seen tragedy: that way they don't scourge your body like vultures, looking for chinks in your armour to pull out the meat of your soul. The way I trick them is by pretending all I am is a good-for-nothing angry drunk, and that's all there is to me.

But there is so much more. So, so much more. A good century's worth of ballads that are caught underneath my nails like dried blood.

"So your boyhood dreams of being a _torero_ had nothing to do with it then?" The Moroccan teases, taking a drag of his cigarette. His foreign accent is quite distinguishable now.

I forgot I'd told him that, "No, no. Weren't you listening _Moro viejo_, eh? I told you already, that takes years of training and strict discipline. Me? I have no discipline. I'm like _Dioniso_ when it comes to the bullring," I lift the glass of beer he bought for me out of gratitude, and I down the bitter liquid in one long gulp to prove my point, "Ahh… lover of the atmosphere rather than the art."

The old Moor half-snorts, half-smiles at my apparent ignorance and reclines back into his seat. Our silence brings to my attention other conversations that take place around us. Most of it I don't understand, many vowels and consonants being thrown about like the red fruit revellers throw at each other during _La Tomatina_ festival. These scraps of chatter splatter against my ears, restricting access to more scraps of conversation, leaving me feeling half-deaf.

I toy with the empty glass in my hands and watch as the suds of beer froth travel round and round. I'm on my way to being quite comfortably drunk.

"Do you want to go?" The Moroccan enquires, watching me dumbly handle the glass. I can tell he is thinking about his daughter; he briefly mentioned his family when I gave him the opportunity to talk about himself. I know he is hoping she does not find herself in trouble this evening when walking against a tide of drunken men in order to go home.

"No." I answer without any regard for whether the _Moro_ wants to leave or not; he owes me one anyway for defending him against some vicious _ataque racista_ outside another student cafe. Besides, if I leave now I'll only end up in another bar with no one to talk honestly to and then end up gambling; cause some trouble because of how lonely I feel on such evenings like this. And talking to this man has made me feel a little lighter so far. Confession always leaves me feeling better and I still have much more to confess to this particular Moroccan immigrant before going to sleep.

The bones have been excavated, but the gored pieces of muscle and fat have still yet to be sewn back on to my narrative.

He too understands my story is still unfinished and relents, "Want another beer, then?"  
I smirk, "You read my mind, señor."

He takes the empty glass from my hands and walks to the bar and out of my immediate vision. Left with nothing to hold, I absent-mindedly crack the knuckles of my right hand and look down upon a fist that has been marred by so many fights. Most of those fights were against some vicious _cabrón _or another, but they never scarred me too badly. It's good that the scars that have really wounded me cannot really be seen by anyone else.

"Here," the Moroccan says, placing the fresh glass of cold beer on the table in front of me.  
"_Gracias_…"  
"So this _mujer encantada_… She's with you now?" He asks as he takes his seat again.

I wag my finger at him in response, my head too busy to steady my mouth as I take a good swill from the beer given to me.

"So what then?" He frowns. I spoke fondly of her, and he's sharp to realise any deep anguish I feel will not yet be on the expense of any woman past my own sister, but still he asks, "She left you?"  
"Nah, never gave it that long."  
"You stopped lusting after her then. Grew bored of her, did you?" The dark-skinned man is more than interested now.

I grin, and the man raises an index finger and cocks his head as if to say _I knew it_. He employs the same gestures I use, but he dances a victorious celebration too soon. I don't smile because he guesses correctly. I take the opportunity to lean over and softly murmur "_Jamás_."

"Ah!" The man lightly hits the flat surface of the table with the palm of his arm in disappointment.

"_Yo siempre lujuria para ella_." I comment before taking another swig. _Good beer_. "You asked me why I came here after the tournament, and I'll tell you now. This woman, she was exactly like… uh…" The right words never come as quick when alcohol is involved, "…_diosa-virgen de la caza y de la luna_, yeah? And for six whole weeks she was my own _Perséfone_…"

"A delicate flower, eh."  
I snort, "More like the serpent underneath it. No wonder most of you _musulmáns_ now keep your wives directly under your thumb. She was some _zorra __fríoa_ at times, I'll tell you that."

"This still doesn't explain why you've come here," He comments, tearing out another cigarette from the case in his shirt pocket.

"I came here, _Moro viejo,_ because I still have this insatiable lust for her. I need more _Semillas de Granada_ to remember her by and quell some of the thirst I feel… Where else but here? Where her ancestors once conquered mine."

_De sueno, rebelde, gitana  
Cubierta de flores,  
__(A dream-land, a rebel, a gypsy,  
Covered with flowers)  
_

The Moro raises an eyebrow before lighting his cigarette, "Turning soft already, are you?"

I brush the taunt off again, "There was nothing soft about it. She may not have had sully skin like you or me, but she was something filthy erotic. Dark kohl'd eyes…" I began to describe, circling a finger around my eye to emphasise how she elegantly held the night in her face. I run my fingers across my lips to remember the feel of hers…

_Y beso tu boca de grana,  
Jugosa manzana  
Que me habla de amores._

_(And I kiss your scarlet mouth,  
Juicy apple  
That tells me about love affairs.)_

"But any beautiful woman is replaceable, eh? You look around any market stall around here and you'll see the same Arabian delicacies, if that's your sort." The Moroccan reasons.

I sigh, "That's the thing, old man. I thought maybe another exiled Persian princess or some Spanish counterfeit could do the job. In the past year I've tried to replace her _sabor agridulce_, but the girls around here are too saccharine, enough to rot your teeth away. All coke and no Jack, no kick in the back of my throat… I don't want a woman who'll take away my bite, you know?"

The man nods, looking a little defeated as if his own wife had been successful in filing down his teeth.

"They just don't have it in them." I finish my beer off.

Through local women and late afternoon walks, my lust is only ever temporarily satiated here and needs something more. Though this is as close enough to her lands that I am willing to live in. Maybe somewhere in Andalusia there is a street that sings to my feet like this place does for Alej. Or maybe when I have lived more years, I'll be able to happily settle back into the hills of this district like an infant grasps hold of its mother. But, for now, this place would have to do; it would have to do its best to hold the likes of me and all my brutish youth; all my brutish desires.

"You sad about it?" He asks.  
My nose crinkles to one side, "Nah, I'm better off alone… She's been the only woman I ever respected past my own mother and sister though, so far anyway."

"Why's that? What makes her different to the others?" The old Moroccan enquires.  
I scratch the back of my head before leaning into the soft seat, "You know how some people walk through the fire?"

He nods expectantly.

"Yeah well… she danced."

And how she savagely danced ensnared me completely.

* * *

**Spanish-English Translations (in written order):**  
- _Gilipollas_: jerk/asshole/stupid  
- _Puto guiri_: fucking tourist  
- _Mijo_: my son (contracted form)  
- _Olvidalo_: forget it  
- _Moro_: term that refers to people of Arab or Berber descent from North Africa.  
- _Moro viejo_: 'old man'  
- _Moura encantada_: 'Enchanted Moor woman', a supernatural being found in Portuguese folklore.  
- _Dioniso_: Spanish term for the Greek God Dionysus - God of wine and revelry.  
- _La Tomatino_: the festival of tomatoes that takes place every year in Buñol  
- _Ataque racista_: racist attack  
- _Cabron_: bastard  
- _Mujer encantada_: enchanted woman  
- _Jamas_: never  
- _Yo siempre lujuria para ella_: I will always lust for her  
- _Diosa-virgen de la caza y de luna_: The Virgin-Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon (Artemis in Greek Mythology)  
- _Persofone_: Persephone, another Greek Goddess. Tricked into being the wife of Hades (God of the Underworld) when she ate pomegranate seeds  
- _Musulmans_: muslims  
- _Zorra frioa_: cold bitch  
- _Semilias de granada_: pomegranate seeds  
- _Sabor agridulce_: bittersweet flavour and taste

* Granada lyrics (given in both Spanish and English) are taken from the Russell Watson version.  
* The stanza about 'better singers in prison' is taken from Atahualpa Yupanqui's song 'Questions about God'.


	2. Two wolves, come separately to a wood

**SAVAGE DANCES**

**ONE: ****TWO WOLVES COME SEPARATELY TO A WOOD**

_There is no better way to know us  
__Than as two wolves, come separately to a wood.  
__**Ted**__** Hughes, A Modest Proposal**_

The harsh light of mid-afternoon splays against the sensitive lids of my eyes in the two seconds it takes for my sunglasses slip down the bridge of my nose. I grumble as I push the frame back up again, shifting my seated posture so my hair can suffer the full brunt of the sun instead. My elbows rest heavily upon the dirty wooden table, fingers grabbing raking clumps of hair from around the crown of my head as I fight the lazy urge to rest the whole of my face against such sticky surface.

"Migue!" A little girl hesitantly calls. _Maria? _For a moment I think I'm having one of those daydreams again. I slowly half-open one eye out of the corner of the sunglasses to sneak an uncensored coloured glance at the young girl's tanned legs as she runs to my side. No, not a dream, not Maria, just one of Alej's grandchildren. My lips purse. I'm too hungover to even grumble this time.

Though Alej took me in, I'm still reluctant to be assimilated into his family no matter how many times he tries. It is _his_ family after all, not mine. And every time his son comes round, I have to endure an evening of pleasantries and watch as Alej treats his son and grandchildren with the warmth and care my father never gave me at that age. My fingers curl into the palm of my hand to create a fist.

"It's Miguel," I say, crossing my arms.  
"Miguel then!" She repeats, this time tugging at my sleeve. All the other children are afraid of me, but this one is rather plucky, somewhat reminding me of the Japanese girl, Asuka.

I pull my arm away from her and lean away from her, "What? What is it this time, Magdelena?"  
"It's Leni," She corrects in turn, angrily placing her hands on her hips, before continuing on, "I can't sleep… _Abuelo_ said you'd teach me some guitar if I asked nicely."  
"_La madre que te parió!_" I bitterly mutter.  
"_Qué_?" Magdelena innocently asks; eyes wide open and her now arms crossed behind her back, almost daring me to say it again.

_Oye! Odio los niños _I sigh; they take until adolescence to realise the importance of siestas.

I'm close to repeating what I'd just said, but she's the type to run and tattle to her _abuelo_. Another berating from Alej for cursing openly in front of his _muñequita_ will do me no favours in acquiring money for beer tonight. I decide to try take a more diplomatic approach to this predicament, "Little girl, I think you misheard your _abuelo_. What he meant to say was you should fetch old Miguel a glass of water and some aspirin. Can't you see I'm ill?"

I lift my sunglasses so she can fully understand my suffering. Both her eyebrows raise, "_Iay_, Migue! You look worse than the _bruja vieja_ who lives down the road from us. Are you sure you don't want make-up? That's what _Mami_ uses and I think it'll work faster than aspirin."

My bleary eyes splutter tired frustration, "No. Just a glass of water and some aspirin." _Me cago en Cristo_, I'm hardly asking for the Holy Grail here.  
"If you say so!" Magdalena sing-songs, running back to the doorway. Some of her auburn hair falls loose from the yellow-decorated hairclip that clamps down upon her young head as she disappears into the house.

I tap my sunglasses back into place and hope she finds something to distract her inside. Then again, I could do with some aspirin. _Después de todo, la aspirina es un salvavidas._

**0 0 0 0 **

"_Ah-lân_! No luck finding the priest again, I see?" The Moroccan greets as I push past the beaded doorway. I take my sunglasses off as he comes to shake my hand, then kissing his own hand before walking back to the counter.

"The priest refuses to see me now I keep the company of a _moreno_. And a bad one at that." I joke, taking a seat on one of the couches in the corner. A student reading on a couch nearby frowns as she looks at me, very much disapproving of the way I address the Moroccan. Politically correct students, always militantly self-righteous sat on their high horse. She turns to the Moroccan to see if he is offended, but he smiles and carries her over a glass of wine accompanied with a _tapa_ _de almendras y marañon_ to the low table situated beside her. She shrugs and goes back to reading.

The topaz and gold framed mirror beads clink a disjointed melody whilst fracturing the outside sun into little lights that dance around the walls of the interior. A Moroccan song plays from an old CD player; the rhythm of Berber folk-music nicely complementing the Arabian decorations and scented smoke. Each time I visit this place, I feel as if I am entering one of Scheherazade's thousand tales; also remembering that first night. How Zafina's body undulated and her skin flicked around shards of light, similar to the mirrored beads I see now, right across the length of the dark alleyway behind the hotel, under all the bright and glittering towers.

My hazy recollection of her rippling movements unveils itself slowly before my eyes. I was outside one of the local bars, strumming a strange mixture of blues, Spanish folk and country ballads on my guitar. I was drunk from both the carnival-esque city and cheap whiskey that was on offer. After some minutes of watching me play and many words of refusal at first, Zafina eventually began to dance for the group. She had been playfully forced by the Brazilian woman who intuitively knew the black-haired woman possessed rhythm we both admired. I saw her movement savagely attractive, her strong legs and hips mastering control and flexibility. And she prowled around me whilst I went on using my intricate fingers to sniff her out too.

Late that night after more dances in the street, we bled into each other for the first time. I did not know then, that when she had bitten and scratched at me, she had led in her _lupercales_ of wolves, jaguars and panthers into my own hot heart. I sometimes wondered why a woman like her would even touch a man like me. Maybe she heard the echoes of the same brutality, some resonance of _las bacanales_ in her own soul. It didn't matter: _cosas más extrañas han sucedido_,as the wrestler said after I beat him into the ground.

The memory disperses like smoke as the Moro takes a _narguila_ from an unoccupied space, setting it up on the table in front of me: he removes the stem from the intricately-designed structure and sifts a teaspoon of cinnamon into the water jar before placing the stem back onto the bowels. The stem is partly submerged in the water now, and the whole _narguila_ looks like a beautifully crafted flower sculpture. I try to guess what should be done next, but before I have the time to figure it out, the Moro fluidly moves on, breaking up and loosely arranges his shisha tobacco onto the clay bowl. He then covers the tobacco with an ornamental metal dish and finally takes a match to two instant lighting coals before placing them over the clay bowl.

It'll be a couple of minutes before the coals are red-hot and he is able to inhale through the wood pipe. The Moroccan takes the opportunity to go to the back of the café to pour a cup of tea for himself, coming back with a tea bowl in one hand and handing me beer from the other.

"_Yara era hora... Ah! Hace fríoc!_" Shocked, but still appreciating how the bottle is ice to touch this time.  
"I've come to expect your presence in my shop; it would be highly rude of me as a host not to accommodate, no?" He reasons whilst handing me a bottle opener. _So he has indeed been expecting me_, probably sick of me vandalising his table for a third time I suspect.

A sudden one-woman sounding chant that emerges from the playing song momentarily startles me. The voice sounds as though it protests against the instrument that accompanies her. My surprise must show as the Moro chuckles, taking his first inhale from the _narguila_.

"She sounds angry." I dumbly observe.

"It's a cover of that French song '_I've had enough of it_'. This woman you're hearing now – she's a big star in Morocco. Najat Aatabou. Her passion was singing, but her family disapproved. Even her brothers threatened her with death for the sake of their honour. So she ran away, lived in a music shop where some music producer found her after hearing this song. He saved her, made her famous."

"_Ea_," I interject, pausing to scratch at my collarbone, "No one saved me from living out on the streets."  
"Such things happen," The Moro shrugs, "It made you into a man. Would you have wanted it any other way?"

I put the bottle to my lips once more. I know I was a difficult kid, didn't want what my parents wanted for me. They wanted me to wear black like clergymen, but how can a man wear black when his blood is red?

"When I left home, there was this huge thrill that sped its way through my body as I stepped out into the streets as my own person. No longer under the suffocating hand of anyone else. The very first breath after being released is revolutionary."

_Truly indescribable. It is everything you love about the universe as it spills into your senses_, "But after that, you remember you have to survive." I try to explain. The Moro nods in agreement. I know he understands, having left his native land for our soil.

I take this as encouragement to go on, "And you'd think all the effort you put into surviving would calm you down, but it hollows a guy out, makes him more hungry. You starve for some meaning to life, but every day is a repetition of the last. So instead you become disillusioned, angry. You find yourself amongst friends of friends who terrorise and tear the city apart. All of it just to feel as if you're a reveller in some frenzied festival procession. You know, _alive_."

"I guess you enjoyed fighting in the tournament then. Renewed sense of purpose." He said; any judgement he had was hidden behind smoke.

I look down while twisting the bottle between thumbs and fingers, "At the cost of my sister's life? No, _se_**_ñ_**_or_. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad from all I did learn those six weeks in Japan."

From Spain to Japan is a long way, no matter how you travel it and it shows. Somehow the mountains there are less trod down and softened by the weather that's been running all over them since they creased up out of the plains. Maybe the hills back in Bu**ñ**ol had looked like these fighters and boxers once, but they'd long since retired to live off the heights they'd risen to when they were younger, fitter. The whole city had done the same, I thought. The people didn't fight, and the city was no longer fighting fit. Not to my eyes anyway.

Not that their lack of fight even mattered, because I _did_ fight. I fought my way out of my mother's womb, out from my father's oppression. And like those mountains, my fist would rise from the soil of my sister's grave, thrusting far up into the sky, powerful and hard-bodied. Straight into the twisted guts of Jin Kazama. Only that mattered as far as I was concerned.

After all, I am a man first, Catholic second. It is not in my nature to grieve, forgive and turn the other cheek as the priests urge you to do. Vengeance is the purest form of justice when such murder takes place.

"Did you have trouble convincing the others of such reasoning?" The Moro asks, quite curious of my experiences with those contestants.  
"No fighter there was the same as the other, but you'd be surprised the number of people who were there because of similar vendettas." I reply, remembering Leo's face in particular.

On arrival in Japan, the thirty-two contestants participating in the Iron Fist tournament were split into two groups and taken to different hotels unless private accommodation had already been arranged beforehand. I had been mouthing off, furious to learn Kazama would not take part in the tournament whatsoever, only facing the last remaining finalist at the end. _Cobrade._ Apparently this had always been the case, but it didn't stop the red-haired from agreeing: _can't shit on people and run off without getting messy yourself_.

"Only vengeance can settle these wrongs." I said before motioning to the bar attendant for another shot of whiskey.

"_É mesmo_?" Christie had asked. I just caught what she meant by the intonation in her voice alone. When she tried to describe the appearance of other contestants to me earlier, she gave up speaking in Brazilian Portuguese and reverted to English: the only language understood by all contestants as it stood.

Christie had been the first to of the lot to introduce herself to me, also buying me my first drink of that night. Her playful and teasing eyes lowered whilst she submerged the ice-cubes in her cocktail using her index finger; it was easy to see she was considering the notion. An old Chinese man dressed in traditional-garb poured himself a small bowl-shaped cup of Japanese wine as some others around our table watched on, mulling over the conversation that had taken place already.

There were no members in our group had settled upon private accommodation, but only a select few came to the hotel bar-lounge to collect a copy of the first-round fixtures during our first night staying there. The others obviously preferred having their copy delivered directly to their rooms for one reason or another.

"He's right, you know. In a world that regards death in statistics, only you can take what is owed." I followed the German-accented voice to the face, "Leo." The speaker introduced, holding out a black-gloved hand. I clasped the hand with in my own. "My mother." He softly muttered for my ears before taking his hand away and seating himself upon a vacant stool.

"No, I disagree. Better fights to be fought." The Chinese man deduced.  
"So what do you fight for, señor…?"  
The old man smiled, "Wang Jinrei. And simply put for the likes of you, I fight as honourably as possible against corruption."

"And the rest of you?" I asked, finding Wang's reasons futile. Perhaps in a previous age I would have respected his answer more, however this is a dog-ate-god world. No place for just defensive combat and honourable resistance.

"Help out my _avô_, my grandfather." The Brazilian woman solemnly answered, a stark change to the flirty demeanour she showed beforehand.

"Rivalry. Glory." The red-haired shrugged nonchalantly. After being introduced by Christie, I found from light conversation that we had much in common for two people from opposite ends of this Earth. Both of us abrasive, stubborn and cocky, but we who live well hustling on the streets earn the right to act in such a way.

I smirked, "Under any other circumstances, my reasons would be the same as yours."  
"I guess you two have yet to be humbled, then." Wang sniped.  
"Ah, take it easy, old man. Some of us aren't born to grow old so quickly." Hwoarang dismissed with a wave of his hand.

"Still here to get money for your orphanage, King?" Christie enquired, before Wang had chance to retort. It was in her nature to act as the glue trying to bind a diverse group of people into some sort of a social unit.

"I'm here to seek out _la pura neta_." The Mexican wrestler growled defensively. He wasn't going say any more than that in my presence, probably because he knew I'd taunt him about to score some easy punches in our fight later on that week. He was my first fight of the tournament.

The tournament based its rounds on single-elimination knockout rules: _lose, go home_. Exactly the way I liked it. In the first week alone, sixteen fights took place which quickly weeded out the weak; only eight winners from each group progressed to the next round, where one half were guaranteed losers. Four knockout rounds were all it took to face the winning contestant from the opposing group in the final. After that, Kazama was bound by obligation to face the overall winner.

I remember thinking: _only five fights, like a given hand in poker. Only five cards until the most important pair is left on the table. _All I had to do then was to flush the king into the shape of a joker with the ace stacked in my fist.

"And what about you?" I asked the stalking figure cloaked by the ebbing darkness the bar lights couldn't quite illuminate into colour. Everyone but Wang turned to follow the direction of my voice. The figure paused when I addressed her, as a cat or spider does when caught by the sight of a person. "Shy, are we?" I jeered.

"Not at all." A female voice replied, accompanied by a saunter into the lighted area. Her eyes appeared first, heavily-black framed lanterns that enclosed a dark flame which shone bright and strong as she looked intensely into my own. Then her tight-fitted black-jacket and jeans were made distinguishable from the murk behind; the lights above both highlighted the figure her clothes kept secret and illuminated the crown of black bound-hair from which gold-hooped earrings glinted underneath. A predator from an ancient age.

Christie scanned the handout, "Zafina?"

The woman in black nodded, unzipping the jacket to reveal a white blouse tucked into her high-waist jeans. As well as the earrings that clung onto the lobes of her ears; she also wore a gold Moor-esque necklace of amethyst, tiger's eye & cabochons encircled by turquoise. A similarly decorative gold-plated belt which held the likeness of a snake eating itself was loosely wound around her hips. It was the golden ouroboros that unsettled me the most; the image of simultaneous nourishment and destruction; as if the snake ominously taunted: _I have two mouths: one is the beginning, one the end_. Like splitting apart a pomegranate and watching that passionate blood spill over your hands.

"For just a moment, that unease deepened when I unclasped the belt later on in the night." I recall to the Moro who is in the process of placing new coals upon the clay-bowl.

"_I hope you know what you're in for, delicias turcas. I'll decimate you." I warned, pulling at the ouroboros belt and feeling my way around for the opening.  
_"_Not before I devour you." She breathily answered; her lips lightly tapping the inner curve of my ear as she spoke. Her hands clawed against the bones of my cheek and jaw._

_I laughed, finally finding the clasp to her belt, biting her little finger that was left limp in the air, a millimetre away from my hungry mouth. And maybe because it was dark and I was drunk, I thought the inanimate snake had slid down the length of her leg, left poised with its mouth open, ready to attack me at any given moment, straight for my ankles to bring me down to my knees._

"Such creatures provoke that fear when their mouths open." The Moro says, stroking his bearded chin, "Back in Tangier, we used to stitch the mouths shut when faced with an untameable cobra. What comes with a bite is always unpredictable, better to be prepared."

"You used to be a snake-charmer?" For a change, I'm the one who's curious now.  
"'_Na-aam_, anything for a bit of spare cash." He pauses to eat some almonds, "From the sounds of it you did a bit of snake charming yourself."

"_Qué_?... Oh, Zafina, _ojalá_."  
There's a sheepish laugh that accompanies this confession.

And the Moro is quick to realise that I took no such precaution. My split-second fear of being bitten by this snake had become a self-fulfilling prophecy: when her body pressed against mine, that sweet poison seeped its course through the blood of my being and I fell to my knees before her.

"_You're too drunk." She panted from above, her arched eyebrow just about seen past the feral mane of black hair and night as she leaned against the wall using her outstretched arm.  
_"_If only you knew how clean and pure I feel." I snarled, pulling her down by the V-necked opening in her blouse, tearing off all buttons until my fingers slid around the hem of those jeans._

_Y mis deseos violentos abrochado a sus labios_.  
And my fierce desires fastened onto her lips.

_And my mouth will fill with the taste of you,  
The kiss that rose from the earth  
With your blood, the blood of a lover's fruit  
__**Pablo Neruda, Sonnet XLVII**_

* * *

**AN: **The Zafina outfit I'm trying to describe is found in the Tekken Artbook (scans available on the TekkenNation forum, just google it).  
Thanks to the two wonderful reviewers I've had so far, really appreciate the time you took to read & critique.  
May make some changes to the chapter if I spot any mistakes & probably will need a beta reader soon to help out with Spanish translations; think I butchered the language with some of the translations found (sorry in advance).

**Translations:**  
- _Abuelo_: (Spanish) Grandfather  
- _La madre que te parió!_: (Spanish profanity) The mother who bore you, son of a bitch.  
- _Oye! Odio los niños_: (Spanish) Ah! I hate kids.  
- _Muñequita_: (Spanish): Little doll  
- _Bruja vieja_: (Spanish) Old witch  
- _Me cago en Cristo_: (Spanish profanity) I shit on Christ.  
- _Después de todo, la aspirina es un salvavidas_: (Spanish) After all, aspirin is a saviour  
- _Ah-lân_: (Moroccan Arabic) welcome!  
- _Tapa__de almendras y marañon_: (Spanish) Appetiser of almonds and cashews  
- _Lupercales_: (Spanish)  
- _Las bacanales_: (Spanish)  
- _Cosas más extrañas han sucedido_: (Spanish) Stranger things have happened  
- _Narguila_: Hookah  
- _Yara era hora... Ah! Hace fríoc!_: (Spanish) It's about time… ah! It's cold!  
- _Cobrade_: (Spanish) Coward  
- _É mesmo_: (Brazilian Portuguese) Really?  
- _Avô_: (Brazilian Portuguese) Grandfather  
- _La pura neta_: (Mexican slang) The truth of it.  
- _Delicias turcas_: (Spanish) Turkish delight.  
- _'Na-aam_: (Arabic) Yes  
- _Ojalá_: (Spanish) I wish  
- _Y mis deseos violentos abrochado a sus labios_: (Spanish) And my fierce desires fastened onto her lips.


	3. Nine of Swords

I'll try my best to update this story regularly now. Hopefully this chapter isn't all in bold (looks find on the doc manager, but all bold on the story preview). Thanks to all the reviewers, favourites and alerts on this story. I'm in the process of planning an Assassins CreedxTekken crossover fanfiction, so if you have any expertise in Assassin's Creed, send me a message because I'll need all the help I can get from that angle. Anyway, time for some good old Zaffy & Migue:

* * *

****

**SAVAGE DANCES**

**TWO: NINE OF SWORDS**

"_siempre", "siempre": garden of my agony,  
your body elusive always,  
that blood of your veins in my mouth,  
your mouth already lightless for my death.**  
Federico García Lorca, Gacela of Unforeseen Love**_

_She sits on the edge of the bed; her back curled and her lip plumped from harsh kisses that are now stale. I feel the vibrations as she rolls the hard-shelled pink fruit and around the bedside table with the spread of her palm. It's more than just a bomb in her hand; it's a grenade that slowly beats like a heart. The match-cord holder is sensually brushed between fingers as she twists it to dance once more before the ticking abruptly ends with an explosion. She stabs through the heavy surface with a knife, and for some minutes after, nothing but silence resonates from the wound. _

_Then the fruit eventually bleeds its juice as she continues to hack into the rind. _

_There's something about the opening of granadas that makes me think of la matanza de puercos. Her own messy slaughter of the pomegranate spurts a trail of bloody-looking fluid across my bare chest and neck._

"_Ten cuidado, mujer!" The pupils in her eyes jump with amusement._

_And her smirk is always unsympathetic._

But with two loud words, the image of her face shatters: "Miguel! _Despertar_!"

"Ahh…_Demasiado vino_…" I groan in response as a bad headache begins to cloud around my temples. I need water, but I'll try to sleep off the thirst instead. I bury my leaden head further into the damp pillows, the friction between my hair and the material sounding like a sea of tumultuous waves in the shells of my ears.

"Miguel! _Ahora, en este momento_!"

"_Piérdete_! _Déjame en paz_!" I shout back, tearing new wounds in my dry throat. I look around for a glass or discarded bottle: anything to alleviate the pain that comes with such desperate thirst.

**0 0 0 0  
**

The old man coughs as I hand him the newspaper, wiping his palm on the hard material of his trousers before grabbing the near-crumpled object to scan.

I point to the small printed photograph, "Look, this is him."

The Moro squints, "'Him'? He looks like a woman."  
"Ay! Besides the point! Are you illiterate as well as an illegal immigrant, just read the article, eh!"

The Moro again does not flinch in reaction to my insult. _Ay_, every time I try and bait the man, he deflects the arrows using a well-crafted silver shield. Even the old Chinese man bit back after some goading. The manner in which the Moro conducts himself is as if he had been trained as a high ranking general, or even a _true _Caballero born of some far ancient and noble lineage. Nevertheless, the man in front of me has never had any desire to fight. He's the type to keep his head down and do his best to avoid any trouble.

_Cabellero_. The syllables of the word become twisted weeds clumped together with damp rot as I sound it out in my head. _Ca-bell-er-o_. Of all the misfortunes my father bestowed upon me, his name had to be the worst. It wasn't just a name I could carry around like a jacket around my shoulders, but a heavy relic of Spain's supposed great history, an albatross which became more weighted each time my father tried to mould me into the knights of old.

Normally I never bother reading the newspapers; more happy to use them to clean Alej's café windows, but this time I sat down and read the damn thing for the first time in my life. I was horrified by the familiar face I saw on the front page.

"So this is the guy you beat in the second round?" The old man asks.  
"_Si_. He put up quite a fight." I answered, scratching the back of my head. "I wonder why they did this to him, hardly like he was big fish."

"But it was an accident, Miguel. These papers wouldn't lie – these aren't controlled by the Zaibatsu. They have little power here in Europe." He tries to convince me, but I can sniff out the lie as well as I can smell the rotten dishonesty in news broadcasts since coming back from Japan.

I shake my head obstinately and he sighs wearily, "Why do you care so much?"

A nearby weed feels the brunt extent of my frustration as I kick my foot to decapitate the leaves from the roots, "Not everything is black and white… We were both fighting for the same kind of justice." I began to explain.

And it was true: from the moment he introduced himself to me in the bar, I knew that I had found someone who understood the pain and confusion of having a loved one taken away from you. Killed as though their existence meant nothing: the greatest insult. And all you can do is stumble in the dark, looking for one small burning candle after another to piece together an illuminating waxwork so you can at least figure out why they were killed, who killed them, what can be done to redeem their memory.

Before we head out into the arena to fight, Leo turned to me, an impish smile crawling a way through his pixie-shaped face.

"To whoever wins, we both deserve it." He said calmly, and I nodded, shaking his hand. However, we would have been blind if we didn't see the aching desperation behind the other's face.

Leo needed to win, but so did I. He fought honourably, and I just relied on brute force and on seeing Jin's face in my mind. Leo's face was bruised, split and bloody by the time I had finished. The clothes hid the extent of damage inflicted upon his body, but the way he twisted on the floor revealed just how I had stormed fists, elbows, knees and feet into him.

I pulled him up to a seat once I had been declared the winner, but didn't apologise. Leo's head lolled to one side as an on-site doctor began cleaning up some of the blood away from his face.

He pursed his lip, trying to stop himself from crying. "Oi, oi!" I reprimanded him immediately, holding his chin within my hand, sweat pouring into my eyes, "Don't you cry. We don't cry for anyone. Okay?"

He shook his head, eyes full of anger and disappointment from what I could see, sweat blurring my vision. I half wished Christie was there as she was better with the caring crap, but she was preparing herself for her match against Asuka later that night. I tried again as I hated people who made you feel so guilty for being greedy. Maria used to make me feel the same sometimes as well. I spoke to him like I would have spoken to her, "You said so yourself, no one really leaves the competition when they've lost: only when they choose to leave. You're free to carry out investigations without being beaten up once a week for it."

"Miguel, it's… it's not the same. I.. wanted to do this honourably and f-fight for justice, for my _mutti_."He struggled whilst doctors now sew stitches in above his left eyebrow.

I bit my lip, cradling my fist in the palm of my other hand, "I'll fight for you, Leo… I'll get him, but it won't be honourable. You now do this the honourable way, okay?"

The German boy's eyes still showed great hurt, but he nodded, resigned to a consolation prize of a future.

There was nothing more I could say, so I patted him on the shoulder and then left the arena.

I tried to remember his face as it was a couple of days beforehand, when I knew he'd be more suited to avenging his mother out of competitive violence. We were all down at the bar as fight schedules for that week had just been released.

"Do you know what those bastards Paul and Marshall are scheming upstairs?" We all turned to the angry short-haired Japanese girl who hurdled into the lounge. Whatever strange glances the rest of the group gave, she didn't care, her gaze was the bottle of beer Hwoarang had poised against his chin. She swiped it and finished the beer off in one mouthful.

Hwoarang shook his head, "_Neon-neo-mu-jja_." He complained.  
"_Damare_, Rang-o-tan! If you wanted me to be nice, you should have let me swap rooms with you. Do you know what kind of misfortune it is sharing a floor with those two losers? Constantly giggling! It's worse than it was when the Lili-Ling duo was still in the competition!" She retorted angrily, sliding an unclaimed handout across the bar to closely inspect.

The Korean sighed, "Asuka-"

"_Uso_! My next fight is Christie? I was hoping to kick the shit out of Paul. Who's got him then… _Eh!_ You? Ah, what a match, who do you think they'll use as the sponsor? _L'Oréal_?"

I stopped listening; her English was too accented to understand as her mouth continued to sprint hundreds of miles in seconds. I picked up my beer and left Hwoarang to deal with her, joining Leo and Christie who were sat quietly conversing at a table nearby.

"You're fighting me this week." I said. Leo frowned his confusion, and I pointed to the slip of paper he was examining.

"No, Miguel. This is the fight schedule for the other group." Christie explained, picking up her cell phone to check if she had any new messages. She sighed and put the purple device down when she realised there were none.

"Still no word?" Leo inquired.

"Nothing." He rested his hand over her own, and she smiled sadly at him, "_Não entendo_, I try to see him after he lost the opening match and he's already vanished."

_Ay, algunas mujeres_. Their youth and beauty rot as they wait for their dead lover's corpse to arrive home. I looked at her as she toyed with some loose strands of dark auburn hair. She was so full of vitality and how it was wasted annoyed me. Her feelings for this Eddy provoked no sympathy of mine. A woman like her was better off without him, but try telling that to her kind without a subsequent punch to the gut. Not that I was any better for her; she was too much of a good girl for me.

"Who did he lose to?" I asked, hoping to move the conversation along.

"Kazuya." She said, shaking her head.

Leo's eyes glanced downward and underneath the soft skin the jaw quickly tightened, "The whole tournament's fixed!"

"Why do you say that?" I didn't like what he was implying.

"_Hallo_! _Jemand zu hause_! Fighters in Group B are big players, veterans of the Iron Fist tournaments. Look at the list of people who have progressed to the second round in that group: Nina Williams, Lee Chaolon, Heihachi and Kazuya Mishima. It's like our group merely exists to ensure whoever faces Heihachi or Kazuya will most certainly lose so Jin has the added glory of defeating one of the Mishimas again."

Christie pushed the list in front of me, "The Mishima family use and dispose of people freely to achieve power and vengeance. Kazuya Mishima murdered both Leo's mother and Eddy's parents. That's the reason why he first left, but since then he's been sucked into their games…" She sighed, the threat of tears shining in her eyes, "Jin holds my grandfather and the chance of retribution as leverage over Eddy. If Eddy loses in the first round, he's free to be used as resource by Jin for the rest of the tournament."

"You never told me he willingly works for Jin." I crumpled the paper, my temper flaring. Why would she hold back such an important detail from me?

"Miguel, please! _Para com isso_! Not everything is black and white. If Kazuya Mishima offered you the chance of bringing Jin down in the name of vengeance, you would put on a collar with his name on."

"No!" I retorted angrily, hitting the table with my fist. She flinched. "No. _Yo no soy esa clase de persona_. I'd do it off my own back. That's the difference, Christie."

My boots kicked into each floorboard and I cracked my knuckles, enjoying these noises of quick thunder as I made my way up the stairs to the third floor of the hotel. I liked the sound of my anger: it was the only articulate thing about me. My voice could slur all it wanted to; all that mattered was that my fists were sharp. As for my thoughts, well, they didn't slur, and they weren't sharp, but they stuck.

I paused on the second floor, sighing as I clasped a tightly clenched fist with my left hand. What Christie said about not everything being black or white made me think of my dad. He used to try and make me play chess with him when I was a boy, but I never had the patience to learn all the moves, and hated it because he used the game to mark my inferiority. I still hear his voice now, '_Miguel, mi caballero negro.' _I'd smile, always expecting a smile back as if it was a special name of endearment. No such luck, just a forced grin in return as he put forward a white pawn, then moving on to talk about how fair and beautiful my sister looked, '_like Isabella of Castile, no?_'

It is now me who always forces himself to grin remembering his stupid games and comments.

Despite every intention of cracking floorboards until I opened a smuggled emergency bottle of Spanish beer, I didn't make it to the third floor. Instead, I stood outside Zafina's hotel room and leaned against the doorframe. The anger quickly dissipated here. _Me quería follar otra vez_, but I was unsure how to exactly go about this without being beaten to a pulp for lack of charm. I had seen how she had coolly defeated the old man Wang, and didn't want to be on the receiving end of a furious attack. She had left before I woke up last time, and had not spoken to me past sly remarks which she bequeathed upon anyone who engaged her in conversation.

I drummed my fingers along the width of the door, deciding on whether to knock a little louder or to just head back to my room.

"I'd stick to guitar playing; you may be good strumming melodies, but finding a good beat in drumming is not your forte." I didn't even have to turn around to see her trademark raised eyebrow, smouldering half lidded eyes and lips that slightly curved at the same side her eyebrow raised.

I folded my arms and grinned whilst turning to face her, "Funny. You quite liked my drum–"

"_Inta shaz_! Stop yourself before you embarrass us both by finishing that retort." She cringed, pulling a key card out of her skirt pocket with her free hand. The other clutched a brown paper bag, which made me think she had been out to buy a book. The skirt she wore was very much like what the girls wore during flamenco festivals he had been to: it swayed when she moved; only lifting off the floor to reveal sandals as she walked to her door.

"Any particular reason why you're here?" She asked, opening the door after slotting the key in.

"No particular reason." I answered ambiguously as I could. Zafina didn't wait to leave the door open for me, so I quickly followed her in, watching as she sat down at the coffee table and removed her purchase from the bag.

"What's that, _gitana_?"

"Tarot cards, _habibi_." She curtly answered, the foreign word sharply flung from her mouth. I smirked, _so easy to irritate_. Her gaze was fixated on a strangely illustrated deck. To this day I still have trouble forgetting those eyes of hers. As she sat concentrating, the vivid colours of her irises flung out like arrows through the balistrarias of her eyelashes.

"Ah, a true _gitana_ then: ready to steal my money in exchange for lies about my future."

She refrained from openly insulting me, instead an eyebrow rose. She'd always raise an eyebrow in disdain whenever she thought I was being ignorant, "Only simple people propagate and believe this method is a direct message from the future."

"So what purpose do they serve?" I asked, watching her shuffle the gold-bordered purple backs of the cards; never once did she reveal the faces of them.

"It's just a game, and how serious you take it depends. You either play for fun, trickery, or to make sense of how you feel about events occurred and what can be made from this. I can only offer a description of the cards and what people say they mean. The rest is up to you… Do you want to try?"

"Think I've enough imagination for this?... Alright, alright, I'll try." I shrugged, _nothing to lose_.

"Open your palms then." She commanded.

I obeyed without hesitation. When in her company, I was always intrigued by what could happen next. She closely inspected the grooves of my battered hands.

"Why look when you've felt the shape and length of them well enough already?" I teased.

Her eyebrow cocked, more in amusement this time, but she said nothing and placed the heavy deck into my open palms. The cards still held the warmth of her hands: the hoops and swirling patterns of her nimble fingers imprinted onto the gloss.

"You have to shuffle and lay them, but before that, we must decide how to spread them. Have you anything you wish guidance for? A decision you have to make … Or do you just want a generic reading?" Zafina asked.

"_Ea_, something generic. I'm not much of a reader." I replied, slowly shuffling the cards, my calloused fingers blurring the patterns of her previous touch.

She waited until I guessed she had felt I had shuffled them properly, "Now lay them on the table, four cards in a diamond shape, one in the centre… Then you will turn them over one at a time."

"All right," I said, laying them out on the table, "Let's see what's in store for me, eh?"

She watched as I turned each card over. The faces of each card were strange to my eyes, having only ever seen the French suits of cards before. "The five-card spread is generally played to decide on a given course of action."

"So what does each card mean then?" I asked, hands damp. I wanted a glass of liquor, but had stupidly forgotten to bring a bottle to her room, so I rubbed my palms against the material of my jeans instead.

Zafina pointed to the card in the centre of the diamond, "This is the first card. This represents the present." I looked and was confronted by the image of three knightly swords piercing a red heart from the top. The right and left sword crossed over in the wound they created, whilst the last of them split the heart through the centre.

"This card is the Three of Swords. There are four suits in the tarot pack, like there are four suits in a normal pack of playing cards. You see here that the swords are piercing the heart? This shows a secret has been revealed. That moment when a fresh wound is about to be found: when you feel like something is not right, but you are not sure what exactly?

"This card also shows that you _want_ to be aware of this secret. It could hurt, but could even be a relief to finally realise. No more obsessing, wondering, worrying, however bitter and painful this could be… Does that make sense?"

I sighed, thinking about how this card could have a place in present. The trouble was that I couldn't see how a three timed pierced heart could translate to such a meaning. It sounded like bullshit to me, like the astrology section in the newspapers people occasionally leave on buses. I concentrated on the picture instead of her words, but no valid interpretation came to me, and I did not like how it left me wondering.

I waved my hand, motioning for her to carry on.

Zafina then pointed to the card to the left of the Three of Swords, "This card represents past influences that still has an effect: In your case, this is the Nine of Swords. See this person sitting upright in their bed, with their head in their hand and the nine swords behind them? You have spent many nights going over your troubles, failings, problems you haven't yet solved. From the cause of this nightmare, you have spent your life living in bad dreams."

My breath hitched a little, enough for Zafina to notice and look up from the table. I felt her eyes examine the deeper structures of my soul behind my face. I didn't like it when she did that, but I kept my eyes on her nonetheless. It had been a long time since I'd given anyone the satisfaction of looking away from them ashamedly.

Her words softened slightly, "Despite all the tragedy in your past that has led to this recurring nightmare, the card shows someone waking up – this means that you can do the same. Your life may seem like a bad dream to them, one they wish they could wake up from. To keep in this cycle offers no solutions. You have to resolve the past somehow."

I clenched my teeth and took a thumb against my nose to still give the impression I was unaffected, but said nothing more.

"Whatever she said after that slipped in through the ears, but was allowed no entry in my mind. I paid little attention as she explained the next two cards."

The Moro lights another cigarette, mulling over what I had recollected, "You really shouldn't ignore a woman's intuition, you know."

"Just didn't want to hear it. Most of it was _monsergas_ anyway."

"What was the last card then?"

I close my eyes, pretending to remember. I almost want to smile, like a child that is gleefully hiding away from an adult, waiting to shout surprise. Pretending to remember! It was a card that I'll never forget.

"This is the last card. Listen carefully, Miguel, this one's important." I didn't want to look at the card she wanted me to take into consideration.

"The potential within this situation is the ability to heal, to change, to leave events of the past in the past and choose a new direction. You can leave death behind, change and evolve. It's about courage, and about recognising that you're holding onto something that needs to be let go."

_I kept staring at the second card,_ "No, not yet. This one" I pointed to the second card. "Forget the other ones, this one…"

Zafina shuffled the deck again, leaving the Nine of Swords on the table. "You really believe so?"

"Spending nights thinking about my past problems? My everyday", I crossed my arms, taking a deep breath. "There is one thing, and that's the reason why I'm here actually. I barely sleep thinking on solutions. This card is the story of my life now". I chuckled humourlessly.

She frowned, tapping the pack of cards against the table whilst I kept looking at the card laid out in front of me, wondering if she understood. I didn't care if she did though, I didn't care whether it mattered or not. All that mattered right then was that I wanted her bloody swollen bottom lip in between my lips, her nails digging welts into my skin again, her lions to snarl at my wolves. I wanted all that because it was real, as real as all my anger and guilt. Because for that brief encounter, I forgot who had died and could not see my past for being mesmerised by the thousand white Persian horses that resided in the moon of her skin.

She continued to drop the deck upon the table, again and again. I could feel the vibrations of the cards running up through my elbows as if they were the sound of violent rain. I refrained from shouting, sensing she wanted a rise out of me, probably wanting to avoid the company of a man who was lamenting life.

Zafina dragged the Nine of Swords away from me with her index finger, the rest of the deck clutched in the same hand. I grabbed hold of that slender hand with my own. The legs of her chair scraped across the wooden floor as I pulled her across, clasping the back of her head in my other open palm as soon as the distance closed between us. My palm cradled her skull as well as it did my fist.

"Don't lose against Yoshimitsu this week." I managed to grit out whilst trying to relinquish her hold over the cards she still clasped within her right hand. If my right palm cradled, her right palm protected with all the fury you would expect of a dangerous woman.

She didn't question my demand, only laughing because she knew I wanted her; that I wanted her for more than just sex. I raked my fingers through her hair, seeing the reflection of my eyes in hers as I leant in to hungrily kiss her crescent-opened mouth.

Zafina opened her palm and let the deck of cards fall and decorate the table and chairs, leaving just one in her hand. I averted my gaze to see the card that was held and chuckled again; this time the humour was felt, "Maybe so, _Gitana_."

The final card left its face for all to see long after falling from her fingers:

_The Fool._

Forgetting someone is like forgetting to turn off the light  
in the backyard so it stays lit all the next day  
But then it is the light that makes you remember.  
**Yehuda Amichai**

* * *

- _Siempre_: (Spanish) Always  
- _La matanza de puercos_: (Spanish) The killing of pigs  
- _Granadas_: (Spanish) Pomegranates  
-_ Ten cuidado, mujer!_: (Spanish) Be careful, woman!  
- _Despertar_: (Spanish) Wake up!  
- _Demasiado vino_: (Spanish) Too much wine  
- _Ahora, en este momento_: (Spanish) Now, this moment!  
- _Piérdete_! _Déjame en paz_: (Spanish) Get lost! Leave me in peace!  
- _Neon-neo-mu-jja_: (Korean) "You're too salty" You're so cheap, can't you afford one yourself?  
- _Damare_: (Japanese) Shut up!  
- _Uso_: (Japanese) You must be kidding!  
- _Não entendo_: (Brazilian Portuguese) I don't understand.  
- _Ay, algunas mujeres_: (Spanish) Some women!  
- _Hallo_! _Jemand zu hause_!: (German) Hello, anybody home!  
-_ Para com isso_!: (Brazilian Portuguese) Cut that out!  
- _Yo no soy esa clase de persona_: (Spanish) I'm not that kind of person.  
- _Mi caballero negro_: (Spanish) My black knight.  
- _Me quería follar otra vez_: (Spanish) I wanted to fuck again.  
- _Inta shaz_!: (Arabic/Palestinian) You're a pervert!  
- _Gitana_: (Spanish) Gypsy  
- _Habibi_: (Arabic) Sweetheart  
- _Monsergas_: (Spanish) Mumbo jumbo


End file.
